Dreams that you don't dare dream
by cein
Summary: Twilight wasn't the first time that Abby had bad dreams.


Title - Dreams that you don't dare dream Author: Ceindreadh Email: Website: n/a Permission to archive: Yes Fandom(s): NCIS Genre (general, hetero or slash) gen Pairing/Characters: n/a Rating: FRT 13 Summary: Twilight wasn't the first time Abby's had dreams Warnings: spoilers for Bete Noir, Missing, Twilight Notes: don't blame me, blame my muse Acknowledgments: I don't own them, I'm only borrowing them and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.

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Abby knew from her early teens that she had some small measure of psychic ability. 

It had never been anything major; she'd never been able to predict lottery numbers or what questions would come on a school test. But every now and then she would have these dreams, special dreams that had a nasty habit of coming true. They had started simply enough. One night she had woken in a cold sweat after dreaming that her pet tarantula had escaped from its habitat and been accidentally sucked up in the vacuum cleaner. Two days later, Fluffy had indeed suffered that very same fate. Abby's mother had been most apologetic, signing, "I'm sorry," over and over again.

At first Abby thought nothing of the dream. Her mother, not being very fond of the spider, had threatened often enough that if Fluffy escaped one more time then she would suck him up in the cleaner. It wasn't until the second dream came true that Abby started to wonder. Again she had woken in a cold sweat, this time from a dream where her mother had stepped out into the road and been knocked down by a speeding car. So vivid was that dream that Abby had rushed into her parents bedroom to reassure herself that her mother was still alive. 

A few days later, Mrs. Sciuto and Abby had been crossing a road when a reckless driver had nearly hit both of them. Only the fact that Abby had recognized the road from her dream had given her the few seconds warning she had needed to drag her mother and herself out of harms way.

And so it continued. Not very often, but at least once or twice every year Abby would wake up from a vivid dream with the distinct feeling that it was going to come true. It wasn't always bad dreams though. One night she woke up from a dream of being at her cousin's wedding and making out with a Goth guy under the table during the reception. It all happened exactly as in the dream, but Abby had to wonder, had the dream really been a foretelling of the future, or had she made the future to coincide with her dream. While Goth boy had been hot enough, Abby didn't think that she would have jumped him so quickly if it hadn't been for the dream. She would have at least waited until after the dessert.

So Abby grew up with her strange dreams. She tried to avoid telling people about them, having received plenty of skeptical glances before she knew better. But sometimes though it was impossible to avoid it. That time she'd told Ducky that she'd dreamed of being on his autopsy table. It had been one of her special dreams, she had known that from the moment she'd woken up in her coffin. And she knew that unless she managed to change something, then sooner or later she would end up cut open on Ducky's table just like in her dream. 

Abby hadn't meant to say anything about it, but Ducky had noticed that she hadn't been down to see him in a while and had asked her if she'd been avoiding him. Much as Abby loved Ducky, she really didn't want to tell him about her ability. People always treated her differently once she'd told them. Even if people believed her, no, especially if the person believed her, things were never the same between them. There was always a suspicion in peoples eyes, especially if something bad happened and they would look at Abby accusingly as if to ask her why she hadn't been able to prevent it.

The story about developing a phobia was only half a truth. Abby just knew, in the same way that people just know things even in ordinary dreams, that not only would she end up on a table in Autopsy, but that that would be where she'd meet her death. The only question was how and when, and the only way Abby could think of avoiding it was to simply avoid Autopsy. 

And then Ari showed up and took Ducky and Gerald hostage and Abby was forced to tell Kate about her dream. So Kate had taken Abby's place down in Autopsy and afterwards Abby knew with a chilling certainty that if she had taken the evidence down as Ducky had asked, then something would have happened. She would have probably gone bouncing in as normal and been in the wrong place at the wrong time and would have ended up dead on the table. 

The next time Abby spoke to Kate about a dream she was a little more circumspect. "I've got a bad feeling about this," she had told Kate after hearing that Tony was going to be trailing a suspect. But there wasn't anything else she could have told her. In her dream Tony had been lying unconscious on the ground. Gun clutched in one hand, mobile phone lying discarded on the ground beside him. And Abby had known that Tony's life was in danger but had no way of doing anything about it. Much as Abby liked her, she knew that Kate was not exactly one to pay heed to supernatural warnings like that so Abby had done the best she could by speaking of 'bad feelings'. In the end it wasn't enough, but fortunately Tony had come through without any serious harm. And it had worked out for the best, as if Abby had been able to prevent Tony from being drugged by the waitress, then that Marine would have been murdered just like his buddies. 

So Abby kept her head down and hoped each night before she settled down in her coffin that this night would be a peaceful one without a special dream to wrench her from her sleep. And for almost a year her sleep was undisturbed, at least by that sort of dream. And then one night she sat upright in her coffin, heart pounding, pulse racing and tears streaming down her face. "No," she said to herself. "I won't let it happen like that." The image of Tony with blood splattered on his face was fixed firmly in her mind. 

Abby wrapped a blanket round herself and sat at the foot of her coffin trying to focus on what she had seen in her dream. Tony with the blood on his face and looking dazed and shocked...but uninjured. Abby almost whooped for joy as she realized, "It's not his blood, he's gonna be okay." But her joy was short-lived as the next thought hit her. "If it's not Tony's blood, it's got to be somebody else's..." And there were really only two options...Gibbs or Kate...Kate or Gibbs. 

The image of Tony in her dream was still uppermost in Abby's mind when Tony showed up in her lab a few days later. "Tony! You're back!" She wanted badly to tell him about her dream, to make sure that he'd be on the lookout for any danger threatening Gibbs or Kate, but one look at his exhausted face and Abby knew that she couldn't lay this burden on him. Tony was barely able to look after himself. Gibbs was likely to be totally skeptical about dreams, so it wasn't until later on when Gibbs had left her alone with Kate that Abby was finally able to warn somebody.

But Kate was no more help than Gibbs would have been. "Hey, it was just a bete noire." And she had walked out of the lab. Abby had watched her go, wishing that she could be as certain as Kate seemed to be. But this was one of her special dreams, she knew that as surely as she knew the chemical compounds she analyzed every day.

"Maybe it won't be today," Abby told herself as she sat back down at her desk. "This could be something from waaaay into the future and maybe even my warning Kate will have changed what's gonna happen." No matter how much Abby tried to reason with herself, she still had a sense of impending doom and there was nothing she could do except sit in her lab and wait for Gibbs and his team to report back from their mission.

Hours passed and although Abby had plenty of work to be doing, she couldn't concentrate on any of it and instead just sat and watched the phone. 

And then it rang. Abby picked it up and listened to the voice on the other end. 

The only sound in the lab was that of Abby's sobs.

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The End 


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